Guest post by Anastasia: The Princess

Anastasia wrote this and I thought it was so beautiful that I asked her if I may make a post of it. She agreed which made me very happy.

I will write this as the second of three posts I want to write about the Daddy question. The third will come after I have found the words for it.

I wrote this several weeks ago and have debated what to do with it. Perhaps it should go here.

I was named for my father.
But he never called me by that name.
For him, I was ‘Baby’ or ‘Princess.’
He set me up to believe the world would grant me the same recognition.
While my mother consistently tried to disabuse me of that notion, I confess I clung to his vision for years.
My father’s baby could do no wrong. His princess could not disappoint. And so, to keep his beautiful expectations intact, I seldom did. At least not where he would know.
And we danced a perfect dance.

My father never raised his voice to me.
He certainly never raised his hand to me.
And now he is not here to.

Perhaps you can explain to me, then, why I stand here, my arms raised and bent and clasped behind my head — my clinging pale blue shirt thus raised above my waist and framing the rest of my body …bared.

My eyes stray to the mirrors that show me the world advancing toward me.
The one I need comes into focus, stepping softly forward, tracing the fingers of his left hand like butterfly wings against my interlocked ones. It is a gentle reminder not to disturb the image.
I heed it.

But my gaze is not bound. It rises to see his perfect face, green eyes slightly narrowed as he considers me, beautiful lips carefully and a little tightly sealed for the moment, close-cropped grey-flecked beard signaling his full masculinity. He leans toward me and his breath is soft against my ear on the right side of my body.
“I will help you, love. I can free you. Trust me.”

It is no silky lover’s promise. It is authority, slightly rough to the touch but washed a shade softer by passion.
And he places a whisper kiss at the curve of my chin, just below my ear.
I shudder gently and it requires all my resolve not to melt against him. I yearn for him with something beyond sexual desire.
If he does not touch me soon …

I close my eyes – it is nothing more than a swift movement of the lids downward and then upward again. The breath I draw conforms to the jagged pain somewhere in my heart.
My body’s response to him is so slight, so quickly completed, and would be so obscure to anyone else, I think they could not – would not — notice.
But he sees. He knows. He has placed me perfectly to effect my healing and I have signaled that I am in compliance.

When I find his reflected image again, he has stepped back slightly and he has raised his right arm. It is golden brown from the sun we have lived and loved in. It is finely muscled and gracefully sinewed. It is perfectly framed by the pale white of his sleeve — the sleeve with cuff he has so calmly, quietly and carefully rolled up moments before in another of the signals I register deep in my brain with admiration.

He is a master of nonverbal communication and he is telling me what I both fear and yearn to hear.
I panic. I cannot do this, I think, and my fingers loosen around each other. I see his chin lift a fraction of an inch, his lips tighten almost imperceptibly. His eyes capture mine. I do not see myself move, but I know that I have. Somewhere inside. I have crossed a boundary and committed myself.

Committed, in spite of the fact, or perhaps because of it – I can no longer tell – that his fingers are clasped around a beautiful, free, transforming black belt of pain and his strong right arm is moving it swiftly and with complete authority downward. Our eyes lock in the mirror as the stripe is painted diagonally across my white, white cheeks.
His are filled with wisdom.
His are filled with love.
Mine are filled with tears.
Mine are filled with gratitude.
Perhaps you can explain this, then, to a princess.

Thank you, Anastasia, that was beautiful.

Would you like another?